Vapor

Chapter Four

The next day, I just wanted to sleep, I just wanted to stay unconscious. The phone rang twice, and I let my machine answer. The first call was from a friend; the second was from my boss at Copies Always, wondering where I was.

The phone woke me up a third time, a few hours later. When I heard Damon leaving a message, I picked up. I was barely awake, and he asked why I sounded so strange.

“I was sleeping,” I said.

“In the middle of the day?”

“Yeah.”

“Is something wrong? You don’t sound well. I’m sure it’s my fault. I feel terrible about last night. I was rude. I abandoned you at the nightclub.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter. It’s nothing, compared to …”

“Compared to what?”

“Compared to other things that can happen in life.”

“Like what? What happened?”

“Nothing. Nothing special. Just … nothing.”

“Tell me. What happened? I can tell something did.”

“Oh, I was just … slightly … attacked. Last night.”

“Attacked!”

He made me tell him the story, which I did as briefly as possible, so I could go back to sleep.

Then he said, “I wish I could have saved you myself. Why was I not there for you? I should have been there for you. Can you imagine if something had happened to you? Can you imagine the guilt you would have left me with?”

Once again I found myself subtly hurt by what he said, but I ignored it, out of exhaustion.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.

“No, it’s okay, I’m very well.”

“All right, I’ll let you get some rest. But I do want to see you again. Is that okay with you?”

At the mention of “rest,” I dozed off and missed what came after.

He shouted “Anna!” in my ear.

I asked him to repeat his question.

“Is it okay with you if we see each other again?” he said.

His syntax was too complex for me, at that moment. “Can you repeat that, more simply?” I asked.

He was silent, and then said, “I want to see you. Do you want to see me again?”

“I can’t remember,” I mumbled. “But tomorrow I’ll remember if I wanted to. Okay?”

“Okay. Sleep well,” he said, and hung up.

I fell asleep so quickly that I almost missed noticing how wonderful it was to be too tired to care about something one cared about too much.

When I woke up later, it was too late to call Nathaniel, as I had promised him. I felt guilty. I would call him tomorrow and amply make up for the oversight. I took a sleeping pill and went back to bed.

The next morning I was extremely awake and alert, unpleasantly so, in fact; painfully aware of everything that had happened to me, down to the last, horrid detail. I stayed in bed for forty-five minutes to straighten out my thoughts and figure out how I felt about things. I would see Damon again, since he wanted to, but things would have to change. He’d have to open up a bit. I would see Nathaniel too, if he wanted to. I’d thank him, and, who knew, in addition to saving me, he might succeed in distracting me, which, in the state I was in, was not necessarily the easier task.

I went to work at Copies Always and called Nathaniel during my lunch break. We had dinner that evening. He was fun to be with, much more straightforward than Damon. He told me about his etiquette expertise. People call him when they are in a crisis and urgently need to know about some rule or other. His etiquette hot line is a 900 number that costs $3.95 per minute, the average length of a call being six minutes. I asked him if that was all he did in life. No, he said; he also played the cello. I was thrilled: my favorite instrument. After dinner, we walked over to his place so that he could play it for me. When we arrived at his building, instead of following him up to his apartment, I sighed and said it was such a beautiful evening, and asked him if he would mind bringing his cello down instead, so that he could play some for me outside.

“You’re cautious and wise,” he said. “I’ll bring it down.”

We sat on a bench under some trees. He played me his own compositions. They were unusual, very beautiful and strange; sometimes even sinister.

When he had finished, I said, “An etiquette expert who’s an expert cellist. Funny combination.”

“You think so?”

“I think so. Is this all you do in life?”

He shook his head and said “No,” suddenly serious, almost gloomy. He took a ticket out of his coat pocket and handed it to me. “Tomorrow night, if you’re free, and interested.”

“What is this?”

“Why spoil the surprise? Although honestly, I doubt anything could spoil the surprise.”

The following night I went to the address on the ticket. To my astonishment, the ticket I was holding was my admission to a show of male strippers. Perhaps Nathaniel was just going to watch the show with me. Perhaps this was the third thing he liked to do in life: watch men strip. I held on to this hypothesis until I no longer could: there were no men in the audience.

From a purely objective point of view, he was very good. He had everything those men are supposed to have. He was one of the best. He went about it professionally, the audience seemed very pleased with him, and yet, I — who knew him a little better than the rest of the women — suspected, even sensed, that his heart wasn’t in it. But he put on a good act. There was a radiant smile on his face, much of the time. He rolled his hips energetically and strutted around the stage in apparent good fun.

Afterward, we went to a bar. I told him I had enjoyed the show, that I thought he was good. My critique was limited to remarking, “You dance well.” I did not feel comfortable expressing any of my other opinions, such as, “You rolled your hips wonderfully. You are very sensual.” Probably the most coveted compliment would have been, “You turned me on.” Although, on second thought, I didn’t get the impression this was the type of thing he was breathlessly waiting to hear. At least not in connection to his stripping. With regard to his cello playing, it would have gone over better, I think.

Later, I said to him, “Etiquette expert, expert cellist, male stripper. Are you hiding any more professions up your sleeve?”

A cloud swept over his face. “Yes. There is something else.” He slid a hand up his sleeve and took out a piece of paper. He held it up between his index and middle fingers, and said, “I always hide a profession up my sleeve.” He flipped the paper over. It was blank on both sides. He took out a pen, scribbled something on it, and handed it to me.

On the paper was an address, specifying the third floor, and underneath he had written “My guest,” and had signed his name at the bottom.

He then said, “If you’re interested and free. Tomorrow evening. At seven.”

The next day, at seven, I went to the address on the paper. To my great surprise, what I found on the third floor of that address was a Weight Watchers meeting. I didn’t know what to make of it. I showed the paper to the receptionist, and she told me to go in. I sat in the audience and waited. A few people were already there, and more were coming in. And then Nathaniel came in. He didn’t look at me. He walked to the front of the class and started talking. Apparently, he was a Weight Watchers counselor. He talked about his experience, about how fat he had been. Supposedly 375 pounds. (Hard to believe.) Following a tragedy in his life. A tragedy that led him to overeat. I wondered what the tragedy had been, but he did not mention it. He spoke with intelligence and sensitivity. He was appealing. It occurred to me he might have made a good actor. And perhaps he was that, too.

After the meeting, I had dinner with him. It was strange, sitting in front of him, watching him eat, after knowing the problems he had with food. He must have sensed my discomfort, because early on in the meal he told me he no longer had much of an eating disorder. I asked him what the tragedy had been.

“It’s nothing like what you’re thinking,” he replied. “It’s not romance or family-related. It was business-related.”

“Business-related,” I mused. “I can’t imagine which of your four businesses it could be related to. Unless these are still not your only businesses.”

“Yes, well, I don’t feel comfortable discussing it further.”

We finished the meal talking of other things.

The next day, Damon and I were walking in a park, by the river, a few blocks away from the one in which I had been attacked.

Hanging out with Nathaniel had reminded me what a normal person should be like: open. (Not that Nathaniel was terribly normal, but still.) I was fed up with Damon’s secrecy and mystery. It offended me. And I was telling him exactly that, as we strolled among the benches and trees. I told him I had trouble accepting his “private ways” and that as much as I enjoyed his company, I did not see the point of continuing to see him if he was not going to open up to me at least a little.

“You won’t tell me anything about your family or your past,” I argued. “It’s too bad, but I can take it. At least for now. What I can’t take is that you don’t even want to talk about your job. That’s going too far, don’t you think? You can’t be secretive about everything! You told me you work with the weather. So maybe you’re a weatherman or something. What’s the big deal? I mean, I could understand your secrecy if you were a stripper, or a weight-loss counselor, or even, I don’t know, an etiquette expert. But the weather? There is no reason, no reason on earth, why you should be reluctant to talk about that profession. Which is why I am losing patience.” I huffed and looked away.

He reached inside the bag he was carrying and took out a present, which he handed to me. It was a box, about four inches long, gift-wrapped in blue paper, with a pink ribbon.

“What is this?” I asked.

“It’s for you. Open it.”

“No,” I said, “I want to know about you, not get some material gift as a substitute.”

“It’s not material.”

Although I barely paid attention to this response, I did wonder if the present might be a poem. Was a poem material? “But still, Damon,” I said. “I want to know about what you do, exactly.”

“Then open the present,” he repeated.

Exasperated, I opened it and looked inside. At first I thought there was nothing. But after a moment I saw that there was nothing; so much so, in fact, that there was not even the bottom of the box. Or at least, I could not see it. It was blurry, foggy.

I looked at Damon.

“Take it out,” he said.

“Take what out? There’s nothing.”

“Come, now.”

I snapped at him: “I don’t see anything inside the box. Not even its bottom.”

“Take out that which prevents you from seeing.”

I stared at him.

“Just scoop it out with your fingers,” he said.

I felt foolish, but obeyed him, and the fog came out in my hand. It was denser than fog, and did not disperse. What it looked like, actually, to a tee, was a small white cloud. It sat there on my hand, but I did not feel it; it was not concrete enough, not material enough. I lowered my hand, and the cloud just hung there, in the air, like a week-old birthday balloon that had lost the energy to soar, but was not yet dead enough to sink to the ground.

I looked inside the box, to see if there was anything even more incredible. There wasn’t. Inside the box, this time, was the bottom of the box.

I looked again at the cloud, which had floated two or three inches away, due to the slight breeze coming in from the river.

My first concern was whether other people were close enough to notice this thing, hanging out in the park’s air. I looked around, but there was no one near us.

“What is this?” I finally asked.

“It’s my career.”

Ah, yes, that had been my question, which, in retrospect, seemed rather petty and stubborn. And yet I did not regret having asked it.

“You wanted to know about my profession,” he said. “So now you know. As I told you, I’m a scientist, and I work with the weather … but more specifically, with water.” He cleared his throat. “I discovered a way to make small clouds. Bonsai clouds, you could call them. I’ve been working on developing different varieties, different strains, and I’m now focusing on one area of development. But I don’t want to bore you with that.”

“I’m not bored. What area?”

“Giving them more substance.”

“It’s incredible,” I said.

“What part? Giving them more substance, or—?”

“No, I mean the cloud. But everything else too, actually.”

“Oh, thank you! I’m glad you like it.”

I nodded, feeling extremely self-conscious, I don’t know why. “Can I touch it again?” I asked.

“Of course. Fondle it as much as you want. Though you won’t feel much. Actually, I’d be interested to know how much you do feel, since you’re the only person so far I’ve shown one of my clouds to.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

He went on: “I’ve often wondered if one’s sensory perception of such an insubstantial thing differs from person to person. My guess is no, but let’s see.”

I touched the cloud, and slowly pushed my fingertips against it. My fingers did not enter the cloud more than half an inch or so. Instead, the cloud was being pushed by my fingers. I then grabbed it with both hands, and my fingers sank into it without any perceptible resistance. Yet it did not quite feel like air. The difference was very subtle, and I wasn’t yet sure how to describe it.

Then, like an ax, I sliced my hand through the cloud, and it remained whole, barely disturbed. I joined my palms together and sliced both of my hands through the cloud, halting in the middle and parting my hands. The cloud separated into two halves, which I then pushed back together.

“It’s dense,” I said. “More dense than real clouds in the sky, I imagine. It does not disperse. It tends to remain whole.”

“I’m pleased you noticed. I’m striving for yet greater density.”

It was only then that a question popped into my head; a question it was odd of me not to have asked sooner and that it was irrelevant to ask now because the answer was obvious. But I decided to ask it anyway: “Are you putting me on? Is this some kind of trick?”

“No, I’m not a magician,” he said.

Damon left for his country house the next day. He said he had some work to do, but that he would be back in a week. He let me keep the cloud.

I missed him while he was away. I was truly enamored, and I decided that the next time I saw him I would make a move on him.

I cherished the cloud that whole week. It was almost like a pet. It even peed in the pocket of my windbreaker once. Or rather, “rained” in my pocket.

I saw Nathaniel a few times. He was charming, and interesting, and interested in me, romantically, even, I believe. But my thoughts were too full of Damon for me to be able to return his interest. That did not prevent us from spending time together, however. He played his cello again, and when I remarked that I had never known anyone as multitalented, he scoffed and said, “You don’t even know the half of it.”

“What’s the other half?” I asked.

“You might never know.”

I did not persist, but instead thought to myself, dreamily and snobbishly: Well, whatever it is, I’m sure it doesn’t compare to making clouds.

Suddenly, his buzzer rang. He ignored it.

“Aren’t you going to answer it?”

“No.”

His tone was a little gruff, so I didn’t probe further.

The buzzer rang again and kept ringing for about a minute, and then stopped. A moment later, something struck his window. And then again. Pebbles. I looked down at the street, which was not far below, his apartment being on the second floor. I saw a man, a Hasidic Jew, with a black hat and ringlets, looking up at me and throwing pebbles at the window. It was a very beautiful man, who looked strangely familiar.

“There’s a Hasidic Jew throwing things at your window.”

He sighed. “It’s not a man, it’s a woman in disguise.”

“Why is she in disguise?”

“So that people won’t recognize her. She’s famous.”

I looked down again at the person, who did indeed look like a woman, now that I was aware of it. A very beautiful woman. But I still couldn’t place her.

“She looks familiar,” I said. “Who is she?”

“Chriskate Turschicraw.”

“The model?”

“Yes.”

I looked again and it did look like her exactly. But how was it possible?

I had read articles about Chriskate Turschicraw. She was the most famous, the most highly paid model in the world. During the past few months, a series of strange events had occurred surrounding her. There was a cult, growing larger, who had decided that she was God. They worshipped her, collected her magazine interviews and modeling photos, killed the paparazzi who annoyed her, and then went to jail for life for the murders (this happened on two occasions). They sacrificed themselves for her, and killed their own members if one of them didn’t treat her well or displeased her. One member killed himself because he was following her down the street, asking her if she needed help carrying her shopping bag, and she said, “You’re bugging me.” He then said, “I’m sorry,” and shot himself right in front of her. I remember being astonished, when I heard that story on the news, at how sensitive and offended the man must have been, and thinking that he should have had thicker skin.

“Why is Chriskate Turschicraw trying to get your attention? And why are you ignoring her?” I asked Nathaniel.

“I’ve known her for a long time, since before she became a model. She’s been in love with me for years. Or infatuated. Or obsessed — whatever you want to call it. Sometimes we’re friends, but sometimes her infatuation makes it hard for us to be friends, and we go through periods of tension, like now, when I need space, need to be alone, and she doesn’t let me, and she gets upset. I have to warn you she’s very jealous.”

“And you have no interest in her beyond friendship?”

“I’m not in love with her. I’ve tried, I can’t be; she’s not to my taste.”

“In what way is she not to your taste?”

“She’s not beautiful enough.”

“What!”

“It’s as simple as that. I’m being frank.”

“But she’s considered the most beautiful woman in the world. I mean, she’s gorgeous.”

“But not enough.”

“Are there women you find more beautiful?”

“No.”

“Men?”

“No.”

“Then I’m confused. Is beauty the only thing that can make you interested in someone romantically?”

“I thought so all my life. But I’m not sure anymore. I may have encountered an exception,” he said, looking at me meaningfully.

I chose not to ask him what that exception was.

When I left his apartment, after talking about Chriskate another half hour, the model had apparently given up and left, but I was wrong, for she accosted me as soon as I walked into the street. Up close she was breathtakingly beautiful.

“You’re the woman who was just now with Nathaniel, right?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered, intimidated.

“He seems very interested in you. You must be interesting. Would you mind if we had coffee?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Why do you want to?” I asked, as casually as possible.

“I think he’s in love with you. You must be an extraordinary person. I very much want to know you. Please, there’s a coffee shop right there. Just for ten minutes. I’d like to talk to you.”

So we went. Soon after we sat down, she asked, “Are you in love with him?”

“Not at the moment.”

“That’s a relief. I’m in love with him, and he’s not in love with me, and I don’t know why. But he is in love with you. Isn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” I said, even though I thought he seemed to be.

“Do you know what it is about you that he … appreciates so much?”

“No.”

“That’s too bad. I would like to know. I would like to be friends with you for a while. Can you help me? I would like to study you,” she said, as I studied her face.

There was something vulnerable, innocent, and pure about her. Magazines had often remarked on the fact that she was beautiful in a way that made you like her. When you saw her face, you felt warmly toward her, you wished her the best, even though you’d never met her.

She had wispy blond hair, and her features were of the most extraordinary delicacy and exquisiteness. She was twenty-three years old. The media had nicknamed her “the Shell,” partly because of her reclusiveness and lack of cooperation with them and partly because her complexion and coloring resembled the subtle pink and white tones inside a conch. It was a well-known fact that people got the urge to stare at photos of her for longer than at other models. It was even considered therapeutic: it filled the viewer with pleasure, and it relieved pain. There was a new form of therapy in which patients were made to focus on different parts of her face in a photograph. They had to stare at her left eye, then her right, then a nostril, then parts of her mouth. Staring at her eyebrows had been found to be particularly soothing.

“I can take you to great parties if you’re interested,” she said to me. “Really fun parties. I think you’ll enjoy yourself, and you’ll meet a lot of interesting people. This way I can be around you and get to know you, and hopefully understand.”

I felt sorry for her. “I’m not sure that it would do much good. There’s nothing unusual about me that you’ll pick up and that will be of any help to you.”

“There must be. I may not figure out what it is, but I’m sure it’s there. Nathaniel would not be with you so much if there wasn’t something about you that made a very strong impression on him. He’s never been with anybody very much, except a bit for me, at one point, because he found me pretty. But he seems more into you than he ever was into me. Have you two slept together?”

“You know, I don’t know if this is such a good idea. I’m very sorry that the situation is not how you would like it to be, but I’m not sure we should get our lives mixed up together.”

“But you said you’re not in love with him. Wouldn’t you like to be friends with me as well as with him? I’m an interesting person too, you know. Maybe even more than him.”

She did indeed seem rather interesting, even if it was just her naive boldness.

Perhaps in an effort to get me to know her, she sped me through her childhood, her background, her life. She tried to be charming, and was. She asked me some questions about my life, which I answered reluctantly and without revealing much, and she responded with interest, insight, and even wit. When she asked me what my occupation was, I did mention that I was trying to be an actress.

She said there was a movie party the following night, and asked if I would please go with her. It was going to be a small, private party for a big movie that was about to be released, and the cast would be there. She said it might be a good opportunity for me.

I had to admit it sounded very exciting, more exciting than any party I had ever gone to. It seemed like an opening into a world that I had never expected to get a glimpse of before I got at least my first movie role. Nevertheless, I felt guilty for accepting, since I knew I wouldn’t be able to help her, that there’d be nothing she’d be able to detect about me that could explain Nathaniel’s interest in me.

I told her these thoughts, and she said it didn’t matter, that she would still be very grateful if I’d go to the party with her. So I accepted, feeling uneasy.

At the party, men flocked to her while she flocked to me.

She told me about her feelings for Nathaniel. She told me how incredible she thought he was, how he wasn’t only incredibly good-looking and charming, but so intelligent: he was the most intelligent person she knew, by far, and so independent in his thoughts, and so caring. And his cello compositions! They were amazing. They were confessions, and reproaches, and expressions of anger, she said. Personally, I had never thought of them that way, but now that she mentioned it, hers was not the most unsuitable way to describe his music.

“And what do you think of the fact that he strips at Chippendales and works at Weight Watchers?” I asked.

“That makes him even more perfect, because it contrasts so mysteriously with his deep personality and genius.”

I had a good time at the party. Chriskate was charming and tried to please me, and almost wooed me like a lover would, just because she wanted to study, scrutinize, and examine me. She hung around me “to learn,” she said. She interrogated me. I found it grotesque: this gorgeous creature, sitting there in front of me, wondering how she was inadequate. All the men buzzed around her, and yet she was observing me, the fool, the poor girl.

I felt ugly and inadequate next to her, yet tried to be strong and unbothered. Not a single man paid any attention to me, and yet I felt sorry for Chriskate. The world wasn’t fair: that this most beautiful of creatures couldn’t get the one she loved, and that plain old me was the one he loved. Then I realized that this reasoning was ridiculous and that what would be unfair was if only beautiful people got love (which was actually often the case).

I finally decided I could be more useful to Chriskate by trying to crush her obsession with Nathaniel. I tried to make her see that there were plenty of other men out there, even better men. I told her she should forget about him, have no more contact with him.

“So that you can have him?” she asked, uncharacteristically suspicious.

“No. I’m in love with someone else anyway. And speaking of men who are more impressive than Nathaniel, this man I’m in love with is a hundred times more impressive.”

“You’re deluded. I’m sure he doesn’t have the talent and genius that Nathaniel has.”

“Oh yeah?” I took Chriskate into the bathroom with me and locked the door. I took the cloud out of my handbag and showed it to her. “You don’t call this talent?”

She was suitably amazed.

I had intended to keep the cloud a secret, even though Damon hadn’t asked me to. But I had been unable to resist showing Chriskate. I put the cloud back in my bag, and as we exited the bathroom, I asked, “Did that impress you enough?”

Three men swarmed around her, smiling, kissing her on the cheeks, offering to get her drinks. “It’s incredible,” she answered me, shooing them away.

I went on: “The man I’m in love with invented a way to make small clouds. I’d say that rates at least as high as Nathaniel’s cello compositions, wouldn’t you say?”

“No, it doesn’t even come close,” she said. “It’s a beautiful thing, this little cloud; a beautiful little scientific concoction, but it doesn’t move me. It doesn’t speak to me. It’s not art.”

“I think it’s art.”

“Science cannot be art. It’s a contradiction in terms.” Two new men accosted her, one of whom was the star of the movie this party was for.

I felt strange hearing a model talk that way, undoubtedly due to the stereotypes about models.

“Perhaps,” I said. “But then if science isn’t art, it’s greater than art.”

We talked of other things for a few minutes, while Chriskate resumed studying me. Suddenly, she looked depressed and edgy, and said to me, “Come.” She quickly walked toward the front door with her face in her hands, and I followed her. People watched her leave the apartment.

We were alone in the hallway. She was crying.

“They all look dumb to me, compared to Nathaniel,” she said, pacing. “I often flip through magazines looking for male models, and they all look dumb.”

“Why would you look to male models as a source of high intelligence? You should go to bookstores and look at author photographs.”

“I do. It’s the same thing. They look dumb. I walk down the street and no one I pass looks as smart as him. His expression is very intelligent. You can immediately see that he must have a really interesting way of looking at life, that he must have really interesting and original thoughts. Don’t you think so?”

“Not particularly. Your perception is skewed by your love for him. That’s what love does. Or infatuation. You’re not objective. If you were to let a year pass without having any contact with him, I think you would be cured. You would see him for what he is: not exceptional. You think there is no one else like him, and you’re right. Even though there may not be any man who has the same specific qualities he has — because no two men are alike — there are many men who have different qualities, more extraordinary qualities.”

Even though I had had a good time with Chriskate, I felt a bit overwhelmed by her obsession, and I needed to take a break from her. So I turned her down when she suggested that we have dinner the following night, and instead I had dinner with my family, at their apartment.

The cloud had rained in my bag at the party, after it had been shown off in the bathroom. When I got home after the party I decided to do an experiment and freeze the water, to prevent it from turning back into a cloud right away, just to see what would happen, if anything. By morning, the water had turned into an ice cube, which I brought to my parents’ apartment when I went for dinner, because I couldn’t bear to be parted from Damon’s gift for very long. Damon had been gone for a week, and I missed him.

I placed the ice cube in their freezer. There were no other ice cubes there, which was good; there would be no risk of my not recognizing it when time came to go home.

My parents and my brother and I sat in the living room and chatted before dinner, catching up on things. My brother and I hadn’t seen each other in a while, and I asked him how school was. He was feeling down, felt uninterested in anything, didn’t know what he was going to do in life, had low self-esteem. We were drinking soft drinks as we talked, and when I asked him about his grades, he seemed reluctant to answer. He took a gulp of his Coke and chewed on the ice while mumbling his response, making it conveniently impossible to understand, which annoyed me. Suddenly, my annoyance changed into horror, and I got up and screamed, “Spit that out! Stop chewing! Don’t swallow the ice!”

“Why?” he asked.

“Spit it out! Just do it! It’s bad, it’s not ice, it’s not water, it’s dangerous!”

“I can’t, I swallowed it already. What do you mean it’s dangerous?”

“Nothing.”

I was upset that my little cloud had been eaten alive, while it was in a paralyzed, helpless state.

My brother looked at me angrily, as if expecting an explanation.

So I gave one: “It’s just that it was my ice cube, which I brought from home, and I didn’t want you to eat it. It was my ice cube.”

I hung my head low and mourned my cloud melting in his stomach. I wondered if it would harm him. I was nervous about that, actually. More nervous about it than about the fate of my cloud. But maybe it wouldn’t harm him. Maybe it would become part of his person in a helpful way.

The following night I had dinner with my family again, still needing a break from Chriskate and even from Nathaniel, and feeling too lonely to have dinner alone. Suddenly, in the middle of dinner, my brother let out a big fart, and my little cloud came out intact and rose above his head. Not having yet seen the cloud, my brother looked at us sheepishly and said, “I’m sorry, it had a mind of its own.”

Seeing the direction of our gazes, he looked up and saw the cloud. I jumped to my feet, overjoyed, and grabbed the cloud and put it in my handbag.

“Hey, do you mind!” said my brother. “Give that back.”

“No.”

“Yes. It’s my fart.”

“No, it’s mine.”

“Oh really? How do you figure that?”

“Someone gave it to me as a present.”

He looked at our parents. “Everyone at this table knows that this is my fart. They heard me make it and they saw it come out of my body.”

“That’s enough now. Calm down,” said our father.

“But she stole my fart!” My brother stomped his foot and looked as if he were on the verge of tears. “I produced something extraordinary for the first time in my life, so I should have a right to keep it. Or at least examine it, for God’s sake!”

I quickly left the apartment, apologizing to my parents and telling them I’d call them later. My brother didn’t try to wrestle his fart from me, which was a relief.

The following day I did agree to see Chriskate again. We had lunch, but this time our encounter was not pleasant. She asked too many questions. She looked at me too intently, studied me too studiously. She even took notes. And she asked the same questions again and again. She didn’t believe my answers.

“What is it about you that Nathaniel likes so much?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must know. He must have told you.”

“No.”

“Why don’t you want to tell me? Because you think it’s pointless? Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”

“No, I wouldn’t mind telling you if there was something, but I don’t think he said anything.”

“You don’t think? That means he might have. That means you’re not sure. Can you please think about it harder?”

“I have, I think. I swear, I can’t remember. I’m pretty sure he never told me what he liked about me.”

“Do you think it’s your looks or your personality? Is it mental? Does he think you’re smart?”

“I don’t know.”

“Please, Anna, think.”

I sighed and mumbled, “I am thinking. But why do you want to know this?”

Her eyes opened wide. “Oh, so you don’t want to tell me, is that it? Cause you don’t approve. You think it would do no good. But you said you would tell me. You assured me you would tell me if you knew.”

“Yes, I would tell you if I knew, even though I also think it would do no good. But I would tell you.”

“Well then guess. Why do you think he likes you?”

“I don’t know. I’m hideous compared to you. I’m not successful. I’m an aspiring actress who’s not even a waitress in her free time: I’m a Xeroxer and an ear piercer. I’m not strikingly witty or gentle or even fun. I may be a little strange, but he didn’t see that side of me. Take your pick.”

“I’m sure you have some assets you’re hiding.”

“I wish.”

“No, no, you must have. Either you’re not telling me on purpose, or you’re just not trying hard enough to think of them.” She then added musingly, “Or maybe you take them so much for granted that you don’t realize they’re there and remarkable.”

I couldn’t wait for the lunch to be over. She insisted that we go get a drink somewhere, to continue the search for my hidden assets, but I declined and said good-bye. She would not accept that. She would not say good-bye. So I started walking away, and she followed me, begging me to tell her my secret. Then some photographers recognized her and started taking her picture. She was loudly asking me, “Why are you special? How are you remarkable? What is it that you do?” Embarrassed, I started running away, and she ran after me, and the photographers ran after her.

“Just tell me, what is it that you do?” she repeated.

I shouted back: “I don’t do anything! Leave me alone! I just am.”

I finally ditched her and went home, panting.

I was not special and I was not remarkable. Anybody who thought so was deluded.

I took a hot bath when I got home and relished the silence. I had never relished silence as much as then.

All I cared about was for Damon to come back. I wanted to see him again. I wanted him to take me away from this insanity, into a world of fantasy.

As I was getting out of my bath, he called. A perfect ending to a perfect bath.

“I’m back,” he said.

“Great!”

“But I have to leave again.”

“When?”

“In an hour or two.”

“For where?”

“The same place.”

“Why?”

“Same reason. Work.”

“Oh. When will you be back?”

“Not for a while. Two or three weeks, perhaps.”

“Oh.” I was crushed and disillusioned. I said nothing.

“But would you like to join me for dinner this evening in the country?” he said. “We could drive out together. Although I realize it’s short notice.”

I accepted without hesitation. He asked me if two hours was enough time to get ready. He added that I might want to bring an overnight bag in case I felt like extending my stay a little.

While I was packing, I could not help thinking about my plan to take the initiative romantically next time I saw him. I decided that the plan would remain in effect. After our dinner, I would try to kiss him, and if he responded by either (a) slapping me, like he did to the woman in the nightclub, or even just (b) gently rejecting me, I would leave. I would take the train home. Or a taxi, if I had to. But — clouds or no clouds — it would be over.

I called the train station to find out at what time the last train left for the city, from the station near his house: 12:40 A.M., they said. This meant a move would have to be made by midnight. If not by Damon, then by me.